Monday, March 22, 2010

Printer Troubleshooting

· Were any changes made to the computer like installing any software/hardware or removing any software/hardware?

· Check the compatibility of the printer software with Operating system.

PRINTER NOT DETECTED

· Please check the USB cable in case of direct connection with computer- If he/she is using the USB cable that came with the printer or purchased a different one.

· If it’s an AIO (all in one) try to make a copy in-order to check the hardware.

· Is the printer connected directly to the wall outlet or surge protector * In case the scanner is not working or no power situation.

· Make sure the connection is correct with the USB at the tower/port.

PRINT QUALITY NOT GOOD

· When was last time the printer cartridges were replaced (In case the print quality is bad?)

· Was the cartridges replaced or refilled.

· Please check the kind of paper.

UNABLE TO SCAN FROM THE MACHINE IN VISTA

In vista most of the printers are plug and play- it will install the drivers automatically. However, if the customer will try to use the button on the machine to scan it will not work, because the buttons are linked with the machine by the Printer software. In that cases we need to install the complete software from the manufactures website. (If available)

· Make sure the length of the USB cable should not be more than 6 feet or it will give us communication error while scanning.

POINT TO REMEMBER BEFORE INSTALLATION OF PRINTER SOFTWARE.

· While installing the printer software make sure that the USB cable is not connected. We need to connect it once we get the prompt to connect the device.

· If you get any error message while installing the software please check on the manufactures website for compatibility issues with windows customer is using.

· In cases we are getting errors for Installer and print spooler- Please check the status of the services in services.msc

· In case print spooler error you should also check the lexbec service and also its dependencies.

· There can be a scenario when it will give us error that higher version of the software is already installed (This happens only in case when the user has more than one printer)

In cases where in the computer and the printer is very old and we don’t have the drivers. Please, follow the steps.

· Go to Control Panel- Printers- Add a printer- Wizard will come up- we need to choose Local printer (Uncheck the option for automatically detect printer)- Choose the printer port accordingly ( In case of USB –choose USB and in LPT- choose- LPT)- Choose HP as manufacturer and DeskJet (990 C) as product, be it be any printer( I will pick the drivers which are windows default drivers)

· If the software was already installed and we need to un-install it. Please, go to the manufactures website and try to look for the un-installer.

· You will also fine the uninstall utility with HP printer in the software disk.

· Explore the disk- open UTIL- open CCC- you will find batch file by the name of Uninstall L1, L2, L3, L4- Double click to run these file- It will remove the entries from the registry also.

INSTALLATION ERROR MESSAGES.

STEP: Verify That the Printer Driver Is Not Already Installed

If the drivers are already installed then follow the printer communication failure guide

If the drivers are not installed then follow the below mentioned steps

STEP: Make Sure That the Computer Operating System Is Compatible With the Printer

12. Click the View menu and click to choose the Show Hidden menu option.

13. Click the plus (+) sign to the left of Printers, then right-click each item and left-click Uninstall.

STEP: Install the Printer Drivers either by using the printer CD or by downloading the latest drivers from the manufactures website.

Print a Test Page option to verify the printer setup.

If the printer driver did not install and the printer was not detected then

STEP: Confirm That the USB Port Is Enabled in the System Setup (BIOS)

STEP: Try the Printer on another USB Port

STEP: Try Using a Known-Good USB Cable

If it still not work with good/ new USB printer cable then

STEP: Determine if There Are Conflicting or Unknown Devices in Device Manager

Open Device manager and Look through the device tree for conflicting or unknown devices. Conflicting devices are usually denoted by an exclamation point (!). Unknown devices are usually denoted by a question mark (?).

If there are exclamation marks or Unknown devices listed

STEP: Disconnect the USB cable and see if errors or unknown devices go away

STEP: Restore the Computer to a Previous State

STEP: Download and Install the Latest Printer drivers from the manufactures website STEP: Prepare for Reinstallation or Drive Replacement

The exclamation marks or Unknown devices remain

STEP: Check the Power Settings for the USB Root Hubs to See if the Printer is Detected

1. Click Start, and then right-click My Computer.

2. Click Manage.

3. In the Computer Management window, click Device Manager.

4. In Device Manager, double-click Universal Serial Bus controllers.

5. Right-click the USB Root Hub entry.

6. Click Properties.

7. In the Properties window, click the Power tab.

8. Look the list for an entry that mentions the Printer.

9. Repeat steps 5 through 8 for each of the USB Root Hub entries

The printer is not listed

STEP: Determine if Any USB Devices Are Connected and Working

The printer is listed

STEP: Restore the Computer to a Previous State

STEP: Download and Install the Latest Printer drivers from the manufactures website STEP: Prepare for Reinstallation or Drive Replacement

There are no exclamation marks or Unknown devices listed

STEP: Check the Power Settings for the USB Root Hubs to see if the Printer is detected

The printer driver did not install and the printer was detected

STEP: Download and Install the Latest Printer drivers from the manufactures website

STEP: Remove any Third-Party Printer and Scanner Drivers

STEP: Restore the Computer to a Previous State

STEP: Prepare for Re installation or Drive Replacement

For any other specific installation error message, we need to go to the manufactures website and search in the KB.

www.hp.com

www.dell.com

www.epson.com

www.brother.com

www.canon.com

www.lexmark.com

CONNECTIVITY

Direct Connection

Wired Network

Wireless Connection

Direct Connection

· Make sure customer is connecting the printer at the back of the tower, because some AIO will not scan if connected in the front. "We will get message that device could work better if connected to USB 2.0"

· If the device is not getting detected, checked the status of the device in device manager.

· If the device is not getting detected, try to check for any spare USB cable if available.

· If the device is not getting detected, try to connect any other USB device to check the functionality of the USB port on computer.

· In vista most of the printers are plug and play- it will install the drivers automatically.

· Now a days we have monitors with USB port on them, make sure customer is not connecting the printer on the monitor (I have seen the same case recently)

Wired Network

In case of wired network we need to make sure that we have proper communication with the computer.

We need to get the IP address of the printer and try to ping it, if the printer is already installed and was working you can check the port and will get the IP address. Other wise please check the section with Quick Tips *.

In case of wired networks we need to make the printer shared.

Following are the steps:-

· Make sure that printer is connected to one computer at least directly. Ping both the computers- success (If not we need to troubleshoot network first)

· Success- Go to Control panel- Printers- Right Click on the printer icon- Make it shared.

· On the second computer- Go to RUN- \\0.0.0.0 ( IP of the computer on which printer is directly connected)

· When you right click you will get the option Connect.

· It will automatically detect the default drivers.

· Set it as the default printer.

· Please do check for any firewall and antivirus which can block the incoming network session.

Wireless Connection

In case of wireless network, first thing we need to check is the Firewall and any blocking software.

While installation, it will prompt how you want to connect device and you need to choose “Through the network”- it will automatically search for the wireless printer-

If found- Good- next on wizard

If No- it will ask for the IP- How to find the IP look the section Quick Tips*

-SCANNING ISSUES IN VISTA

- There are some printer which do not have software compatible with Vista- In that case if the customer will try to use the scan button it will not work- You need to educate the customer that as the software is not available for the particular model. they need to use the computer in order to scan -The best option for scanning in vista is using windows Photo gallery

Steps are following- HOW TO SCAN FROM WINDOWS PHOTO GALLERY

Open Windows Photo gallery- Click on File- Choose Import from camera and scanner- It will show you the scanner- Select it and click on Import- It will ask you what are you scanning and other quality options- click on preview, it will show you the preview and then click on scan - Once it scans, it will provide you the save option* that you can change* - By default we have the My Scans folder in which the scans are saved.

*************This is the option other than Scanner and Camera wizard *************

- MANUFACTURERS CHAT SUPPORT LINKS

Following are the Chat support, links if you need to get some specific details of error.

1) While installing HP printer once it moves on to the License agreement screen and it is taking long time- Go to Task manger –process- end the process WRAPPER.EXE, it will directly move on to the screen which says connect your hardware.

2) To get the IP address we need to go to Menu/Setup- Network- View/Print network settings.

3) In case IP address is not coming- we have an option in Setup/Menu – Network- to run the wireless setup wizard- which will automatically bring the IP address.

4) If you are unable to scan the document as it gives error for Scan.msi missing following the steps.

After deciding it was a registry problem, I went into regedit, searched for SCAN.MSI. Found a key under HKLM/software/classes/installer/products and deleted the entire entry. Scanner works now, Warning, deleting things out of the registry can be harmful to your computer, this worked for me and MAY work for you, but I offer now warranty for the results

************Make sure you take the backup of registry and delete the entries only for Scanner***********

5) If you are able to print but unable to copy- check any message on LCD on machine- if it says scanner failure- it means scanner bulb needs to be replaced.

MANUFACTURERS KNOWLEDGE BASE

PLEASE CHECK THE MANUFACTURES WEBSITE FOR ANY SPECIFIC ERROR MESSAGES AND MANAULS OF THE SPECIFIC PRINTER.